by Elena Monroe
Jessica’s full lips tugged my bottom lip between hers, and I felt her hand grasp my forearm, like she was sinking too quickly.
She was.
I could feel her melting into me, not breathing, holding it all in her chest. Letting my head bow, I contemplated rejecting her.
“Don’t say it. Don’t tell me you’ve got a girlfriend. Doesn’t Daddy have rules against that?”
“There are rules. No distractions. Vic entertains girlfriends. Not worth the trouble.” My voice was flat, factual, and non-emotional.
Her hand tip-toed up my arm, along my tattoos. “I’m worth the trouble. Come on, I heard they’re down here somewhere.” She was still glowing at the thought of seeing the ones we would be hunting tomorrow.
This bitch was a kind of crazy I avoided leaning into.
I had nothing better to do, so I followed her down the stairs at a much slower pace. Whatever direction she was going was away from the dull party now behind us. I was good with being an actual ghost if I couldn’t feel like one by swallowing a benzo down.
The estate was pretty, housing all the concealed ugly. At least under the night sky, it was the eerie you would expect. The gothic structure and dim lights made the shadows in the dark seem like they were following you.
They had been doing the hunt for centuries. The amount of lost souls trapped here instead of in the depths of Hell like the Clave preached would probably create a lot of holes.
Jessica, the mysterious duchess, knew the secret path between the tall trees that created a border around the lawn before the forest kissed each side, which was strange. This was her first time invited to the ceremony. Something about Jessica made me wonder about her.
“How did you get invited exactly?” I watched her look both ways from behind her, like she had forgotten her way, even though this wasn’t common knowledge at all.
“I’m a Vasilyevich. There are no firstborn boys in my generation yet, so you’re stuck with me.”
“As in Ivan the Terrible?” I had met a lot of bad people, but that name was pretty much on the trinity list of foreign power. She wasn’t male, but that was mattering less and less to the Clave as long as you had money, influence, and power.
“That’s the one…” Her voice sing-songed her response proudly.
We were all related to monsters.
All heir to corrupt kingdoms.
Forced to uphold some delusion that we were doing God’s will by ridding the world of the bad people, when we should have been included in that kind of purge.
“It’s down to the right. There’s a bunker. That’s where they keep the sacrifices…”
I was finally tired of wandering around when I knew exactly where to go. I had found them by mistake one year when I was ten, back when inviting your whole family was more common. They expected everyone to be present, even if you weren’t wielding a musket and shooting real people down.
The four of us used to play Hide-and-Seek on the grounds, just to keep ourselves entertained. I always had the best hiding places. This was our vacation home when it wasn’t being used for some ceremony the Clave hosted.
I was ten years old when I found people in cages in the bunker we were told to stay away from. They were all drugged, out of it, like they were dreaming with their eyes open. I envied them. Dreaming with your eyes wide open seemed like the perfect antidote to life. It was too bad that kind of safety only came just before you died.
It wasn’t until my first attendance that I realized these people weren’t lucky at all. They were bait for aggression running wild. They were enemies of the Clave that we hunted for sport.
None of them were going to survive; the least we could do was let them dream with their eyes wide open.
Yanking the heavy door open and walking down the small set of stairs, I could hear the people in their cages stirring, sitting in the dark. Nightmares, dreams, whatever kept them alive.
Jessica was walking close behind with her hand on my shoulder helping guide herself as we descended into the pitch black. Using my phone, I touched the flashlight feature on to illuminate the floor, which looked like an aisle down the row of cages.
The metal bars were the only thing between the prisoners and us. Metal bars as old as the ground itself. The cages had been here since before we found the perfect way to silence our enemies: with three days of games.
“That’s them.”
Jessica didn’t leave any room for safety when her hands wrapped around the bars, and her gaze was pressed up against them. She was mesmerized by all of it. Her features all pulled into joy, glowing and anxious for more.
This bitch was really crazy. I mean, I thought I was, but hell, she was really crazy.
“How does it work?”
“We draw names from a hat. You get assigned a prisoner, and then you have until sunrise to kill them.”
Nothing was joyful about my voice. It is what it is.
“I want this one.” She was staring into the cage of conspiracy theorists that had been making waves and forcing people to look at the Clave. The woman seemed unassuming. Her chestnut hair was in space buns, with her mouth open, and her head leaning against the cement wall.
“There’s no way to rig the names. My father is the one who personally handles that.”
“All men have weaknesses, Jason.”
She said my name with an undertone that meant she knew I was Grimm, not Jason anymore. I wondered what else she knew and how much my father told her.
GRIMM
Once Russian Barbie with a thirst for killing had her fix looking at tomorrow's victims, I made my way back to the estate. With my jacket unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, and bow tie undone, I stalked up the stairs, thinking I was leaving her behind to drink and dance with the rest of them.
My room was in the West Wing of the estate, reserved only for Rothschilds, while everyone else took the rest of the eighteen rooms.
Jessica’s heels on the hardwood floors had me glancing behind me, when I realized she was still following me.
“Party is downstairs, toots.” My smirk said the exact opposite, even if I didn’t mean it.
“Your dad mentioned I didn’t have a room. Said to bunk up with someone…” Her voice trailed off as the champagne flute touched her red lips seductively.
“I don’t entertain overnight guests… nice try.”
She leaned up against the wall, tugging her heels off and sipping the rest of her champagne, before setting the empty crystal down. She was playing some kind of game that I didn’t have the rules to.
Her hands landed on my half unbuttoned black shirt, and she leaned far enough into me to smell her powder. “Come on, Jas- Grimm. I can be a lot of fun. Aren’t you high just thinking of tomorrow?”
Holding her upright against me, I tried to ignore her pleading, but at this point-blank distance, it was hard.
“Sleep. That’s it.” My voice was solid and unwavering. I wasn’t bending the rules I made myself, just because I found someone just as fucking crazy as myself.
She steadied herself against me on her tiptoes. “You know neither of us plans on sleeping until we’re dead. Don’t kid yourself.”
Jessica wasn’t wrong. One of the hardest things I did at night was sleep. It never came easy, and when it did, it never lasted long. Normally it took a full bar of Xanax and some Sleepy Time tea to even get me comfortable enough to want to sleep. Having a not-so-invited guest in my bedroom was going to cause more issues than I was willing to deal with.
My room was a time capsule of when I was a teenager before I left for the private school created solely for us. Between the Estate and our home in the hills, this room saw every transition I made.
Red walls, black trim, heavy metal posters, and action figures of horror movie villains. Freddy, Jason, Michael, Pennywise, Hellraiser… enough to display how fucked up I was if I idolized these kinds of people.
I used to think I was just a villain, until I realized villains are redeemable.
>
I’m not.
Monsters aren't.
I’m one of those unredeemable monsters with no hints to a plot point that makes what I do somehow okay. No amount of trauma can wipe away the damage I’ve created in my life.
Pretty much fucked summed it up.
“Wow, your room looks like a horror movie.”
“I am a horror movie. I’m gonna shower off the uptight, stuffy-ass elitism off me.”
“Before you do… unzip me?” Moving her hair all to one side and standing with her thighs touching the gothic bed frame, I saw why she used her looks so much. They worked in her favor. She was built like a dream, had a voice made of fantasies, and whatever was wrong with her was so far deep you had to dig it up. I could see how most would find themselves too enamored with her outside to even contemplate digging anything up.
Taking slow, easy steps towards her, I lifted my hand covered in tattoos to drag her zipper down her back on the champagne colored dress she had on. She stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only one not in black.
I heard her breath get caught in her throat as I pulled the zipper down her back all the way to her tailbone, where her matching thong was exposed.
Now my breath was trapped in my esophagus at the sight of her creamy ass against the shimmer of the champagne colored dress.
With my hands on her hips, I steeled myself along with her. She was so still, yet shaking in my grip. Mentally, I had to think of how long I had been depriving myself. It didn’t take long. I had two girls I rotated, but when things got heavy enough, I spared them the insecurity of being alone with me.
When things got heavy, too dark, or there were too many nightmares, I was a kind of monster that didn’t know control anymore.
Thank god for loyalty, gag orders, and payoffs.
Before I knew what control and being out of control looked like, I let women sleep in my bed. I didn’t think anything of it until my high school girlfriend, Talen, had snuck onto the grounds and woke up to me having a nightmare I was living out. I had a knife in my grip and stabbed her in the arm as I attacked whatever had me on high alert.
Talen tried to contain it, thrashing around under me and avoiding the sting of the metal in my hand. She was terrified of me, all of me. Once I came back to reality, that’s all I saw: a terrified girl who got burned trying to love me.
That was the last time I had a girlfriend or let a woman stay in my bed. For everyone’s sake.
I didn’t know if it was being lost in the memory or the fear of her spending the night here, but Jessica somehow lost my attention between the zipper and the material of her dress now being a pool at her feet.
Without a word, I pulled myself away from her. With her body on display, she twisted around and leaned against the mattress, hoping I would get lost again. Dropping my suit jacket, I made sure to have my phone, before I closed and locked the bathroom door.
I wasn’t taking any chances of Jessica inviting herself anywhere else. I couldn’t imagine what accidently killing someone of her stature would mean for the Clave.
Leaning against the door, I scrubbed my face with my hands, seeing a missed FaceTime message I didn’t remember going off.
Abigail.
Didn’t seem her style. Miss Professional was doing something less professional.
Curiosity set into my features when I pressed the call back button and put my phone on the counter against the toothbrush holder as I proceeded to unbutton my shirt that was feeling tighter by the second. It was a straitjacket.
The phone rang and rang… until a white countertop came into view. I waited for her to come into the picture when she slurred her words, “I’m drunk, but what I have to say still matters. It’s not appropriate how you manage your employees.”
She caught me off guard, making a smile spread, as I balled up the shirt and tossed it behind me. Working on the double button of my pants, I chuckled, making sure the parts that mattered were out of sight, considering what she just said.
“Okay, what do you want me to do about it, toots?”
“Are you… naked? Oh my god.”
I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing as her face came into view with her hand clamped over her mouth and eyes glassy from the alcohol. I could tell she was drunk. She wasn’t her rigid, self, complete with an uptight attitude and air about her that knew she was slightly better than you.
“About to be. I’m not on the screen, relax.”
“I can still see you…” her cheeks were overrun with a blush she couldn’t hide, even with her tan complexion.
“Abigail, focus. You called me for a reason.”
She hiccupped against her own palm, making me smirk even bigger at her little frame in her white tank top, with no bra as far as I could tell, sitting on her couch, drunk.
“You… need to be a better boss.”
“Okay, how do you advise I do that?” Walking into the open space under the shower head, I turned on the water and set my phone against a shampoo bottle, still humoring her.
“Not doing… what you’re doing.”
She said that, but she bit her lip so hard I think she was willing away the way I made her feel.
“I’m not Vic. We aren’t going to have hard and fast rules, toots. I’m multitasking. Anything else I can do for you?”
My voice was sarcasm and torturing for her. It was fun playing with how much she wanted me - as is, used and slightly abused. Jessica wanted a pet monster to complete her crazy fucking life.
“You are endlessly frustrating!”
“And you’re drunk and making googly eyes at me. I call that even.”
The screen suddenly went dark, and I couldn’t hold in the absent minded need to chuckle at how attractive I found her even drunk.
The water ran down my tattooed body making the tattoos seem glossy and fresh, compared to the once dark ink settling into the aged blueish gray. The ache in my dick didn’t subside even with an Abigail fix. Rubbing my hand down my chest I soaped off the insanity that is my life in one swipe.
Transfixed and dazed at the pebbled up water droplets on the shower wall, I let my weight sink into my palms. I could smell Abigail. I could see her thick brows and straight, full lips defiant in curling either way. I really, really, needed a Xanax when I could feel the warmth of her body caged between my arms.
None of this could be real. My fucked up brain was imagining things, ways to cure me.
Her petite body, shoulders against the shower wall, I could even see her tank top getting wet. See-through, I could see her nipples, a darker shade of taupe instead of pink, push against the fabric. Her full lips were getting chapped against her own shaky breaths.
My chest was picking up speed, raising and falling quicker. My breath was temporarily halted. My voice managed to huskily push out a string of words, “You aren’t real.”
I could feel her arms wrap around my neck, and her breasts pressed against me as her mocha hair got damp. She whispered against my cheek, “No, baby, I’m not. I’m better. I’m what you make me.”
I was a monster who happened to be equally as crazy.
Fucking the figment of my imagination taunted me as I let myself feel her lips leave sloppy kisses along my neck. Every part of me reacted to a fake version of Abigail, the girl who didn’t want anything to do with me and that somehow pushed a green light in me.
She wasn’t scared of me like everyone else.
She didn’t need me to be a monster.
She didn’t even want to know the truth, and that made wanting to corrupt her world so much more satisfying.
My hand wrapped around myself as her kisses nipped all over my chest. She was a hallucination, but one I didn’t want to end.
Probably a side effect of the meds.
Maybe the deprivation I had been suffering lately.
Driving my hand down myself I felt every piercing between my fingers creating a kind of death trap women didn’t see as a warning but a challenge. They all want
ed to swallow me whole, metal parts and all, just to say they could.
I could still tell it was my own hand. I wasn’t that delusional. I knew I was touching myself, but that didn’t explain why I could feel Abigail too.
“Fuck… Abigail.”
The words fell out of my mouth when my forehead pushed against the wet tile. No matter how I moved, I felt the heat of her between me and the wall.
Closing my hand tighter, I felt my hips still and the feeling I was chasing, the fleeting sense of ecstasy, crept up my spine, making my body go stiff.
My chest was rising and falling quickly, and I stood up straighter under the water. I half expected to see Abigail still watching me. When I unclamped my eyes, there was nothing there, just the shower wall with droplets.
Shoving my fingers through my hair, I tried to steady my breath and get a better grip on reality. The hallucinations weren’t new… just happening more and more. Just like the doctor warned would happen if I didn’t take a more proactive approach to my own health.
That’s the thing about monsters… we live to wreck and die in the rubble. Only heroes do the saving.
Finally turning the lukewarm water off, I knew the night was far from over and the allure of maybe sleeping was off the table with Jessica in my room.
“Who were you talking to?”
Her face was calling me crazy. Me. When she was the one picking out people to kill tomorrow.
It was laughable.
“FaceTime. Secretary.” My curt thoughts hung in the air like disdain, heavy and flat, as I sat on the edge of my bed.
Looking at the time, it was almost midnight, and I had other traditions to attend to. The four of us had a standing meeting with our fathers when it came to this ceremony.
Midnight.
In the study behind the fireplace, unseen by everyone unless you knew exactly what to manipulate to get the lack to set the entrance free.
A meeting I wanted to skip altogether.
Someone brought my overnight bag up to my room without me asking, which wasn’t a shock. The staff here did things without asking all the time—preemptively helpful.